Sketches of The
Character, Manners, and Present State of the Highlanders of Scotland

Part II

Present State, and
Change of Character and Manners

SECTION IV.

Smuggling—Consequences of
reducing the Highlanders from the Condition of small Tenantry—Policy of
retaining an Agricultural Population.

I must now advert to a cause which contributes
to demoralize the Highlanders in a manner equally rapid and lamentable.
Smuggling has grown to an alarming extent, and, if not checked, will
undermine the best principles of the people. When they become habituated
to falsehood, fraud and perjury, in one line of life, they will soon learn
to extend these vices to all their actions. This traffic operates like a
secret poison on all their moral feelings. They are the more readily
betrayed into it, as, though acute and ingenious in regard to all that
comes within the scope of their observation, they do not comprehend the
nature or purpose of imposts levied on the produce of the soil, nor have
they any distinct idea that the practice of smuggling is attended with
disgrace or turpitude. Their excuse for engaging in such a traffic, is,
that its aid is necessary to enable them to pay their rents and taxes;—an
allegation which supposes that these demands require the open violation of
the law, by practices at once destructive of health and good morals, and
affords a lamentable instance of the state to which they find themselves
reduced. As a contrast to the discontents against Government which prevail
in the South on political subjects, and on Reform, it deserves to be
mentioned, that in the North, annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and
the whole catalogue of political grievances, are never thought of. There
the severity and intricacy of the Excise laws, which render them equally
difficult to be understood or obeyed, conjoined with the conduct of
individual proprietors, form the theme of their complaints. The delicate
situation in which landlords are placed, when sitting as magistrates in
Excise courts, and inflicting penalties for smuggling, has a strong
influence on the minds of their tenants, who complain that they cannot
dispose of their produce, or pay their rents, without the aid of this
forbidden traffic; and it is difficult to persuade them that gentlemen are
sincere in their attempts to suppress a practice without which, as it is
asserted, their incomes could not be paid, in a country where legal
distillation is in a manner prohibited. How powerfully this appearance of
inconsistency contributes to affect the esteem and respect of tenants for
their landlords, must be sufficiently evident.

It was not till after the year 1786, when the
introduction of foreign spirits was checked by Mr Pitt's celebrated bill,
that the distillation of whisky was carried on, to any extent, in the
Highlands. [So little was it practised in the Perthshire Highlands, that a
tenant of my grandfather's was distinguished by the appellation of "
Donald Whisky," from his being a distiller and smuggler of that spirit. If
all existing smugglers were to be named from this traffic, five of the
most numerous clans in the country conjoined, could not produce so many of
one name. In the year 1778, there was only one officer of Excise in that
part of Perthshire above Dunkeld, and he had little employment. In the
same district, there are now eleven resident officers in full activity,
besides Rangers (as they are called) and extra officers sent to see that
the resident excisemen do their duty; yet, so rapidly did illicit
distillation increase, that it would seem as if the greater the number of
officers appointed, the more employment they found for themselves ; and it
is a common, and, I believe, a just remark, that whenever an Excise
officer is placed in a glen, he is not long without business.] Brandy and
rum were landed on the West coast, from which they were conveyed to all
parts of the country, and composed the principal spirituous drink of the
inhabitants. But when foreign spirits were prohibited, the contraband
distillation of whisky commenced, and was prosecuted to an extent, and
with an open defiance of the laws, hitherto unknown; and yielding large
profits,—particularly since the improvements in agriculture increased the
produce of barley,—the traffic spread rapidly, and, in many districts,
became the principal source from which the rents were paid. Whisky became
fashionable, and superseded the consumption of other liquors; one effect
of which has been, the nominal price to which rum has been reduced. The
Lowland distillers complained that the smugglers undersold them, and
lessened the demand for their manufacture. These complaints were not
without cause, at the same time that the preference given to the
contraband spirits was owing to its superior quality;—a remarkable
difference, considering that the legal distiller has full time for
conducting his operations in safety, while the smuggler is in constant
hurry and dread of detection, and, when ferreted out from one rock or
hiding-place, is obliged to commence in another. With all this, a pure and
wholesome spirit is distilled in the hills, while the legal still throws
out an unsaleable liquor, at least not saleable, unless at a lower price,
or until after it is re-distilled and rectified.

Several acts of Parliament were passed for the
suppression of smuggling. By a special act, the Highland district was
marked out by a definite line, extending along the southern base of the
Grampians, within which all distillation of spirits was prohibited from
stills of less than 500 gallons. It is evident that this law was a
complete interdict, as a still of this magnitude would consume more than
the disposable grain in the most extensive county within this newly drawn
and imaginary boundary; nor could fuel be obtained for such an
establishment, without an expense which the commodity could not possibly
bear. The sale, too, of the spirits produced was circumscribed within the
same line, and thus the market which alone could have supported the
manufacture of such quantities was entirely cut off. The quantity of grain
raised in many districts, in consequence of recent agricultural
improvements, greatly exceeds the consumption; but the inferior quality of
this grain, and the great expense of carrying it to the Lowland
distillers, who, by a ready market, and the command of fuel, can more
easily accommodate themselves to this law, renders it impracticable for
the Highland farmers to dispose of their grain in any manner adequate to
pay rents equal to the real value of their farms, subject as they are to
the many drawbacks of uncertain climate, uneven surface, distance from
market, and scarcity of fuel. Thus, no alternative remained but that of
having recourse to illicit distillation, or absolute ruin, by the breach
of their engagements with their landlords. [Since the formation of roads
to the hill-mosses, and the introduction of carts, the consumption of peat
for fuel has greatly increased, and is quickly diminishing the supply.
Peat has now become an expensive fuel; the raising and carrying home the
quantity necessary for even family purposes consume much valuable time, in
the season best calculated for agricultural labour and improvements. Coals
are brought from thirty to fifty miles by land carriage, in preference to
the expense and loss of time in preparing a species of fuel which is not
well calculated for strong fires. The nature and expense of this fuel
afford additional arguments against the propriety or justice of equalizing
the Highland duties with those of the Lowland distilleries, independently
of the great difference in the quality of the grain and of the distance
from market The price of forty stones of coal sold in this neighbourhood
is thirteen or fourteen shillings ; the same quantity is sold in Perth for
four shillings; how then, with an inferior grain, and such a difference in
the expense of fuel, and a farther expense of sending the spirits to
market, can the Highland distiller pay the same duty as the Lowland
distiller?] These are difficulties of which the Highlanders complain
heavily, asserting that nature and the distillery-laws present
insurmountable obstacles to the carrying on a legal traffic. The surplus
produce of their agricultural labour will, therefore, remain on their
hands, unless they incur an expense beyond what the article will bear, in
conveying to the Lowland market so bulky a commodity as the raw material,
and by the drawback of price on their inferior grain. In this manner,
their produce must be disposed of at a great loss, as it cannot be legally
manufactured in the country. Hence they resort to smuggling as their only
resource,—a state to which it might have been expected that neither an
enlightened government nor liberal landlords would have reduced a
well-principled race, and thereby compelled them to have recourse to
practices subversive of the feelings of honour and rectitude, and made
them regardless of their character in this world, and their happiness in
the next. And if it be indeed true, that this illegal traffic has made
such deplorable breaches in the honesty and right feeling of the people,
the revenue drawn from the large distilleries, to which the Highlanders
have been made the sacrifice, has been procured at too high a price to the
country.

By the late alterations in the
distillery-laws, the size of the still has been reduced, with the view of
meeting the scarcity of fuel, and the limited means of the Highlanders.
Government had, unfortunately, shut their eyes to the representations of
the evil consequences resulting from those prohibitory measures, and had
turned a ready ear to the offers of revenue by the large distillers. This
conflict between temporary revenue and lasting injury to the morals of a
virtuous people, was so long continued, that the evil has become too
general, but not beyond remedy. If the Excise-laws were so framed as to
enable the Highland distiller to overcome the difficulties which nature
has thrown in his way, and with his light and inferior grain, to pay the
duties which are calculated for the more productive grain of the southern
counties, it might safely be predicted that smuggling to any extent would
speedily disappear.

[When the duty on malt was lowered a few years
ago, all grain malted in the Highlands of Perthshire was entered for the
Excise-duty, and a great increase of revenue drawn ; but when it was again
augmented, smuggling of malt recommenced, and the revenue produced has not
been worth the expense of collection.

Since the publication of the former editions,
circumstances have occurred which, if persevered in, will confirm the
above prediction. An act was passed in 1823, lowering the duty, and
allowing stills of forty gallons. The consequence has been, that smuggling
is disappearing ; and when the people have time to comprehend the
provisions of the act (no easy matter, considering the power the Board of
Excise assume, of construing the different clauses at their own
discretion), smuggling will be as little practised in the Highlands as it
was sixty years ago ; that is, before the people were prohibited from
manufacturing their grain, by enactments so unsuitable to the state of the
country as to be a complete interdict.]

It is well known that smuggling was little
practised, and produced no deterioration in the morals of the people,
(who, in the last age, were not, in any manner, addicted to strong
liquors, [The salaries of Excise-officers are so small, as to be
inadequate to the support of their families, and the expense to which the
exercise of their duty lays them open, viz. being daily on horseback, and
living much in taverns. The deficiency is supplied by their being allowed
a share of all fines and seizures; but it is evident that, if there were
no smuggling, there could be neither fines nor seizures, and, while the
suppression of the traffic would destroy a source of great emolument to
those whose duty it is to suppress it, they must live on their small and
inadequate salaries,—an alternative to which it were prudent not to expose
them. 'Without attributing any improper conduct, or neglect of duty, to
men placed in this delicate situation, it is well known, that fines and
seizures have failed in suppressing smuggling. On the contrary, smugglers
proceed with more eagerness than usual, immediately after a seizure or
conviction, as, otherwise, how could the consequent fine be paid? How
could the Excise- officer be paid his share ?]) till the change in the
Excise-laws, [Till within the last thirty years, whisky, as I have just
noticed, was less used in the Highlands than rum and brandy, which were
landed on the West coast, and thence conveyed all over the country.
Indeed, it was not till the beginning, or rather towards the middle of the
last century, that spirits of any kind were so much drank as ale, which
was formerly the universal beverage. Every account and tradition go to
prove that ale was the principal drink among the country people, and
French wines and brandy among the gentry. In confirmation of the general
traditions, I may state, that Mr Stewart of Crossmount, whom I have
already mentioned, and who lived till his 104th year, informed me, that,
in his youth, strong frothing ale from the cask was the common beverage.
It was drank from a circular shallow cup with two handles. Those of the
gentry were of silver (which are still to be seen in ancient families),
and those used by the common people were of variegated woods. Small cups
were used for spirits. Whisky-house is a term unknown in the Gaelic.
Public-houses are called Tai-Leanne, that is, Ale-houses. Had whisky been
the favourite beverage of the Highlanders, as many people believe, would
not their songs, their tales, and names of houses allotted for convivial
meetings, bear some allusion to this propensity, which has no reality in
fact, and is one of those numerous instances of the remarkable ignorance
of the true character of the Highlanders on the part of their Lowland
friends and neighbours? In addition to the authority of Mr Stewart (who
was a man of sound judgment and accurate memory to his last hour), I have
that of men of perfect veracity, and great intelligence regarding every
thing connected with their native country. In the early part of their
recollection, and in the time of their fathers, the whisky drank in the
Highlands of Perthshire was brought principally from the Lowlands. The men
to whom I allude died within the last thirty years, at a great age, and
consequently the time they allude to was the end of the seventeenth
century, and up to the years 1730 and 1740. A ballad full of humour and
satire, composed on an ancestor of mine, in the reign of Charles I., and
which is sung to the tune of Logie o' Buchan, or rather, as the Highland
traditions have it, the words of Logie o' Buchan were set to the air of
this more ancient ballad, describes the Laird's jovial and hospitable
manner, and, along with other feats, his drinking a brewing of ale at one
sitting, or convivial meeting. In this song whisky is never mentioned; nor
is it in any case except in the modern ballads and songs.] and in the
manner of letting land; and there is little doubt, that, if the laws were
accommodated to the peculiar circumstances of the Highlands, the
prediction which I have now ventured to make would be fully verified. In
this opinion I am supported by that of many men of judgment and knowledge
of the character and disposition of the people, whom I have consulted, and
who have uniformly stated that smuggling was little practised till within
the last thirty years. The open defiance of the laws, the progress of
chicanery, perjury, hatred, and mutual recrimination, with a constant
dread and suspicion of informers,—men not being sure of, nor confident in
their next neighbours, a state which results from smuggling, and the
habits which it engenders,—are subjects highly important, and regarded
with the most serious consideration, and the deepest regret, by all who
value the permanent welfare of their country, which depends so materially
upon the preservation of the virtuous habits of the people. No people can
be more sensible than the Highlanders themselves are of this melancholy
change from their former habits of mutual confidence and good
neighbourhood, when no man dreaded an informer, or suspected that his
neighbour would betray him, or secretly offer for his farm. And they still
recollect that the time has been when the man who had betrayed or
undermined the character or interests of his friend and neighbour, would
have been viewed as an outcast from the society to which he belonged. But,
while they bitterly lament this change, they ascribe much of it to the
seeming determination of Government to prevent distillation on a small
scale, by enforcing laws and regulations unsuitable to their country or
its means, and equally difficult to be comprehended or obeyed; and when
landlords cannot draw the full value of their lands, nor tenants pay their
rents without a vent for their produce, the complaints of the Highlanders,
both proprietors and tenants, seem to be well founded.

There is another circumstance which I cannot
avoid noticing ; that is, a practice lately introduced of ordering parties
of cavalry to the Highlands as a terror to smugglers. Dragoons are
necessary to oppose an enemy; but they are instruments that ought not to
be used at the instigation, or under the direction, of an irritated, and
perhaps ignorant, exciseman. Parading cavalry through glens and rocks,
where they can be of no use, is an ignorant display of power, and would be
matter of derision, were it not for the feeling which the exhibition
occasions among the people, who ought not to be suspected of resisting the
laws without good grounds; nor should they be permitted to believe that
they are so formidable as to require military force. So different is it in
the Highlands, that, with a tolerable knowledge of circumstances, I know
not of one case where it was necessary to call in the military. On the
contrary, the excise officers are so far from meeting with resistance,
that when they make a seizure, they are often assisted by the people to
destroy their own utensils with their contents; and when the duty is
finished, the officers are offered refreshment, and invited into the
houses of those whose property had been destroyed. Are these a people
requiring dragoons to keep them down? Government and the Board of Excise
ought to look into this matter. Military force is not yet required in the
Highlands, except in the northern ejectments by fire, and military
execution; but unnecessary harshness, and accustoming men to believe that
they are turbulent, may make cavalry and infantry necessary. Let a warning
be taken from Ireland. The deforcements and resistance to excise-officers,
so frequent in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, Stirling, and Perth, are by
bands of men of desperate character, many of them Irish, and from the
western counties, who are the purchasers and carriers of smuggled spirits,
but not the manufacturers, who carefully avoid such encounters and
skirmishes, and, except in cases of unnecessary severity on the part of
excise-officers, and the consequent irritation, quietly surrender their
property when discovered.

The recent change of disposition and character
forms an additional argument with those who urge the propriety of removing
the ancient inhabitants, on pleas derived from then-supposed incapacity
and indolence, or from the climate and soil. This character has been
depicted in strong colours. Pinkerton describes the Celts as "mere radical
savages, not advanced even to a state of barbarism; and if any foreigner,"
adds he, "doubts this, he has only to step into the Celtic part of Wales,
Ireland, or Scotland, and look at them, for they are just as they were,
incapable of industry or cultivation, even after half their blood is
Gothic, and remain, as marked by the ancients, fond of lies, and enemies
to truth." Without being influenced by the opinions of this author, the
well-known fact should be recollected, that much of the land in the
Highlands is barren, rugged, and from the numerous heights and declivities
difficult to cultivate; that the climate is cold, wet, and boisterous; and
that the winter is long and severe, and the country fitted only for the
maintenance of a hardy abstemious population. No doubt, the population is
numerous in many districts, in proportion to the extent of fertile land,
but nevertheless the people have supported themselves, with an
independence, and a freedom from parochial aid, which a richer, more
favoured, and more fertile country, might envy.

The indolence of the Highlander is a common
topic of remark: at the same time it is admitted, that, out of their own
country, they show no want of exertion, and that, in executing any work by
the piece, and in all situations where they clearly see their interest
concerned, they are persevering, active, and trust-worthy.

[The integrity and capability of the numerous
bands of Highlanders which supplied Edinburgh with Caddies is proverbial.
These Caddies were, during the last century, a species of porters and
messengers plying in the open street, always ready to execute any
commission, and to act as messengers to the most distant corners of the
kingdom, and were often employed in business requiring secrecy and
dispatch, and frequently had large sums of money intrusted to their care.
Instances of a breach of trust were most rare, indeed almost unknown.
These men carried to the South the same fidelity and trustworthiness which
formed a marked trait in the character of the Highlanders of that period,
and formed themselves into a society, under regulations of their own. Dr
Smollet, in his Humphry Clinker, gives an account of an anniversary dinner
of this fraternity, of which nine-tenths were Highlanders, though little
now remains of the original order of Caddies. These employments are thrown
into other channels, the number of stage-coaches rendering communication
so cheap and safe, that special messengers are unnecessary. There are,
however, many Highlanders in Edinburgh employed as chairmen, and in other
occupations; and it might furnish no uninteresting inquiry, whether the
Highlanders formerly employed in Edinburgh were more trust-worthy, and
more remarkable for their zeal, activity, and regard to their word, than
those of the present day ? If such an inquiry should prove that they have
not greatly degenerated from the virtues of their predecessors, perhaps
there is little foundation for the reports of the deplorable want of
religion and morality in the North. It would, on the contrary, show that
their moral feelings, and the sense of shame which they attached to a
breach of trust, were the best safeguard of that integrity which made them
valuable servants to the public. On the other hand, were such an inquiry
to show a change of character, it would afford a melancholy contradiction
to the reports of the improved religious knowledge of the Highlanders, and
show that the blessings resulting from religious and moral education were
not so defective in the last age as many have been made to believe.]

But still it is maintained, that, if placed on
small farms in their native country, they are worse than useless. If this
opinion be well-founded, it might furnish a subject of inquiry, why men
should be persevering as labourers in one situation, and in another
useless, and that too, though labouring for their own immediate comfort,
and for the support of their families? It might also furnish a surmise,
that as they seldom show any deficiency of intellect in comprehending
their own interests, so there is something wrong in the system under which
they are frequently managed ; otherwise what could occasion an
inconsistency so difficult to reconcile with any known principle, as that
a man should be indolent and careless about his own fields, and yet active
and vigilant about those of others?

[The small tenantry often complain of the want
of encouragement to improve. But the want of encouragement to themselves
they would not perhaps feel so much, did they not see great encouragement
given to the large farmers, while they are abandoned to their own
exertions. Thus, when glens and districts in the Highlands are
depopulated, and the lands given to a man of capital, estimates are taken
for building a proper establishment, large sums are expended on inclosures,
and stipulations are made to recompense the tenant at the end of the lease
for improvements made by him. When such are the very commendable
encouragements given to farmers on a large scale, why are the small
tenants so often refused any kind of support? Before large houses are
built for tenants, it might, however, be matter of consideration to
apportion the rent and taxes in such a manner as to leave a clear income
suitable to the accommodation provided for them; otherwise it must appear
absurd to place a man in a house proper for an income of six or seven
hundred a year, as is often seen, when perhaps the clear profits of the
farm are not fifty. There are farms of two and three hundred pounds' rent,
where the interest of money sunk in building houses is from fifty to
sixty, and in some cases more than one hundred pounds. Had these men the
fee-simple of their farms, it might be a question how far it would be
prudent to pay such rents for a dwelling-house and its appendages. Several
farms within my knowledge are rented at two pounds the acre, but the
landlords have erected such expensive buildings, that the interest of the
money expended is equal to one pound per acre, leaving only the same sum
of clear rent, while the tenant is subjected to an unsuitable expense in
furnishing and keeping in repair such an establishment. A process which is
so hurtful to the tenant, and which reduces the landlord's rent one half,
is called by our statistical economists, improving his property.]

Another circumstance has prejudiced the
character of the Highlanders in the opinion of strangers; I mean, the
reluctance they showed to avail themselves of the employment offered them
on the Caledonian Canal, although furnishing employment to the ejected
tenantry was one of the reasons assigned for undertaking that work. At the
same time, it may be observed, that this expensive relief, the formation
of the Canal, was only temporary, while the want of employment is
permanent. The small number of Highlanders who have been employed on the
Canal has afforded ground for an opinion, that they have a disinclination
to labour, and are not calculated for any exertion beyond the habits of a
pastoral life. To those who are strangers to their habits and way of
thinking, this of itself might appear a sufficient proof of their aversion
to any stationary or laborious employment; but not so to those who know
that land and cattle, with their usual appendages, form, as I have already
noticed, the principal aim of a Highlander's ambition. Deprived of these,
he is lowered and broken in spirit; and to become a labourer in his own
country, and to be forced to beg for his daily hire and daily bread, in
sight of his native mountains, and of those who witnessed his former
independence, he cannot bear without extreme impatience. Hence, while so
few resorted to the constant and well-paid labour on the Canal, in the
heart of their country, thousands crowded down for employment to the most
distant Lowlands. Indeed, the greater the distance the better, as at a
distance from home they were unknown, and their change of station remained
concealed, or unnoticed. For the same reason, they overcome their
attachment to their native country, and emigrate to the woods of America,
in the hope of obtaining a portion of land, the possession of which they
consider as the surest and most respectable source of independence.
"Wherever the Highlanders are defective in industry," says the late
Professor Walker, "it will be found upon fair inquiry, to be rather their
misfortune than their fault, and owing to their want of knowledge and
opportunity, rather than to any want of spirit for labour. Their
disposition to industry is greater than is usually imagined, and, if
judiciously directed, is capable of being highly advantageous both to
themselves and to their country."

Their spirit and industry may be seen by
looking to the nature of the country, and the length of time during which
the Highlands formed a separate and independent kingdom, repelling all
invasions, and at length establishing their king and government in more
fertile regions. It must therefore have been capable of supporting a
greater population than it is commonly supposed adequate to maintain; for,
surrounded as the people were by the sea, and by neighbours often hostile,
preventing any excursions beyond their mountains, except by force of arms,
their sole dependence must have been on their own resources. But these
must have been sufficient to maintain the whole inhabitants, or they could
not have so long existed in independence. Indeed, it is not easy to form
an opinion of the extent to which population might be carried by spirited
and liberal encouragement to the industry and energy of the people.
Unfortunately, however, this is not the opinion of many, who hold that the
country cannot prosper while the original inhabitants remain, and that, to
improve the soil, where the people are without capital or skill, would be
a vain attempt. This opinion is probably the cause why, in so many cases,
the liberal encouragement of Highland landlords has been directed to other
channels than that of raising the condition of the original occupiers of
their estates. If the Highlanders are deprived of their lands, where is
the benefit to them, that great sums are expended in building large and
commodious establishments for the stranger of capital ? Is it of any
advantage to the ancient race, that the landlord liberally sacrifices part
of his expected rents to encourage the present skilful possessors, to make
room for whom they were removed? Nor does it seem clear that the natives
of the country can profitably avail themselves of the admirable roads, for
the formation of which gentlemen advanced large sums; or that they can
frequent the inns built, and the piers and shores formed, since by their
removal to their new stations, as cottagers, they are left without a horse
to travel on the roads, without produce to embark at the shores, and
deprived of the means of acquiring property or independence.

It was not by depopulation, or by lowering the
condition of the inhabitants; it was not by depriving the country of its
best capital and strength, "a sensible, virtuous, hardy, and laborious
race of people," [Professor Walker's Economical History.] and, by checking
all further increase of wealth, except what might arise from the increased
value of the produce of pasture lands, that the Dutch reclaimed fertile
meadows from the ocean, that the Swiss turned their mountains into
vineyards, and that the natives of Majorca and Minorca, scraping the rocky
surface of their respective islands, (as hard as the most barren within
the Grampians), caused them to produce corn and wine in abundance. What
industry has accomplished on the rocks of Malta is proverbial. But, in the
North, "the climate is a common-place objection against every improvement.
It is certain that improvements which, for this reason, are resisted in
the Highlands, have taken place successfully in districts of Scotland,
which are more unfavourable in point of climate." [Professor Walker's
Economical History.] If such is the case in other districts, the
difficulty should be more easily overcome in the Highlands, from the
abstemious and hardy habits of the people, who are contented and happy
with the plainest and cheapest food. Wherever time has been allowed, and
proper encouragement afforded, the industry of the tenants has overcome
the difficulties of climate, and of unproductive soil.

[No encouragement to a Highlander is equal to
the prospect of a permanent residence, and of an immediate return for his
labour. The rent should be fully as high as the produce will admit, with a
promise of reduction in proportion to the extent of improvements made.
Hence, when men rent small farms of fifteen, twenty, and thirty acres,
they will, by their personal labour, and that of their families and
servants, be able to drain, clear, and inclose the land. The improvements
should be annually valued, and one-fourth or one-third of the amount
allowed to the tenant as a deduction from his rent. In this manner an
industrious tenant will work equal to twenty or thirty per cent. of the
rent. This will make the farm cheap during the progress of improvement,
and, as these operations can be completed in a few years, the landlord
will afterwards have his full rent, which the tenant will be enabled to
pay easily by the improved state of his land; and, at the end of the
lease, can afford a considerable augmentation from his increased produce,
the consequence of his own industry, and of the encouragement given
him,—which may be said to have cost the landlord nothing, as the money
remitted out of the rent could not perhaps have been paid without the
personal labour and improvement of the tenant. It is evident that this
process could not be accomplished by mere capital alone, without the
personal labour of the occupier; and that the farm must consequently be
small, because, if the work were done by hired labour, the payment by the
landlord would be no relief to the tenant in the way of abatement of rent,
as he must pay it away to those he hired; whereas, if he labours himself,
with the assistance of his family, he retains the money for his immediate
use. Such a mode as this might be advisable in barren land, which will not
always reimburse any considerable outlay of money, without the assistance
of the personal labour of the cultivator.]

Although their labours are unremitting, their
time and attention are divided among so many objects, that the aggregate
produce of their labour is less visible than where the same time is
employed in the single endeavour to extract the utmost produce from the
soil. The tending of cattle wandering over mountains, or constantly
watched in pastures not inclosed, and the preparing and carrying home
their fuel, with numerous interruptions, divide and increase their toil,
in a manner of which the people of the plains can form no idea. These,
indeed, are not monotonous labours, that chain down the body to a certain
spot, and limit the mind to a narrow range of ideas; but still they are
toils incessant and exhausting. A different kind of labour may seem more
advantageous to those economists, who would reduce the labouring class to
mere machines, and produce, in this free country, a division of the people
into castes, like the population of India. But such a change is nowhere
desirable, and is impossible, in regions divided from each other by almost
insurmountable barriers. A general plan of making all persons, however
different their circumstances, conduct the agriculture of their respective
districts, in the same manner,—like the iron bed of Procrustes, which all
were made to fit, by being either stretched to the proper length, or
shortened by mutilation,—must not only be inexpedient, but cruel and
oppressive to the tenant, and subversive of the best interests of the
landlord.

[The sagacity and facility of accommodation to
novel situations that mark the Highland character, may be ascribed to the
versatility arising from such varied occupations. As emigrants settling in
a wilderness, the exemption from dependence on tradesmen must be
peculiarly useful. If the Highland, like the English peasant, could not
subsist without animal food, and bread made of the best of flour, together
with ale and beer, it would give some strength to the opinion of those who
think that the barren lands of the North ought to be left in a state of
nature, and that an attempt to improve them to advantage would be
hopeless, as the produce of so sterile a soil could not sup. port a people
requiring such expensive food. But, when we have men of vigorous bodies,
capable of subsisting on potatoes and milk for nine months in the year,
using animal food, beer, or spirits, only on great occasions, and wheaten
bread never; it may be allowed that a Highland proprietor, having lands
fit for cultivation, and a hardy race, might preserve the one and improve
the other, and thus secure a better and more certain income on his
improved soil, than that which depends entirely on the price of sheep or
cattle.]

But it is unnecessary to talk of economy,
industry, and good morals, in regard to a country without people, as is
the state of many Highland districts. These districts, once well-peopled
with a race who looked back for ages to a long line of ancestors, will now
only be known like the ancient Pictish nation; that is, by name, by
historical tradition, and by the remains of the houses and the traces of
the agricultural labours of the ancient inhabitants. In these there can be
no increase of the general produce, by any amelioration of the soil, and
consequently the rents can advance only by a rise in the value of the
animals fed on the pas-tures; and as this increase of price may proceed
from a previous loss by severe winters, diseases, and other causes, it is
rather a precarious contingency. The increased value of animal produce has
enabled those interested to put forth statements of the unprecedented
riches of the country, and of the expected prosperity of those placed in
the new villages.

[In the same manner, reports are published of
the unprecedented increase of the fisheries on the coast of the Highlands,
proceeding, as it is said, from the late improvements; whereas, it is well
known, that the increase is almost entirely occasioned by the resort of
fishers from the South. To form an idea of the estimation in which
Highland fishermen are held, and the little share they have in those
improvements of the fisheries noticed in the newspapers, we may turn to an
advertisement in the Inverness newspapers, describing sixty lots of land
to be let in that county for fishing stations. To this notice is added a
declaration, that a "decided preference will be given to strangers." Thus,
while, on the one hand, the unfortunate natives are driven from their
farms in the interior, a "decided preference" is given to strangers to
settle on the coast, and little hope left for them, save that those
invited from a distance will not accept the offer. When they see
themselves thus rejected, both as cultivators, shepherds, and fishermen,
what can be expected but despondency, indolence, and a total neglect of
all improvement or exertion?]

But no hint is given of this important truth,
that the same high prices would have equally affected the small occupiers
as the great stock graziers, and that the high prices are the causes of
the increased value of land, and not the cold-hearted merciless system
pursued, and the change of inhabitants. Wherever there is a space and soil
covered with a well-disposed population, experience, example, and
encouragement, will teach them to better their situation.

I shall only notice one other argument adduced
in support of the depopulation of the Highlands; and that is, that sheep
are the stock best calculated for the mountains. On this subject there can
be but one opinion; but why not allow the small farmer to possess sheep as
well as the great stock grazier? It is indeed said that it is only in
extensive establishments that stock-farming can be profitable to the
landlord. This hypothesis has not yet been proved by sufficient
experience, or proper comparison. But allowing that it were, and allowing
a landlord the full gratification of seeing every tenant possessing a
large capital, with all comforts corresponding to the opinion of a great
proprietor, who wishes to have no tenant but who can afford a bottle of
wine at dinner ; there is another important consideration, not to be
overlooked in introducing this system into the Highlands—that, in
allotting a large portion of land to one individual, perhaps two, or
three, or even five hundred persons will be deprived of their usual means
of subsistence, compelled to remove from their native land, and to yield
up their ancient possessions to the man of capital,

[We have lately seen 31 families, containing
115 persons, dispossessed of their lands, which were given to a
neighbouring stock-grazier, to whom these people's possessions lay
contiguous. Thus, as a matter of convenience to a man who had already a
farm of nine miles in length, 115 persons, who had never been a farthing
in arrear of rent, were deprived of house and shelter, and sent pennyless
on the world. The number of similar instances of disregard . of the
happiness or misery of human beings in an age which boasts of enlightened
humanity, patriotism, and friendship for the people, are almost
incredible, and do unspeakable injury to their best principles, by
generating a spirit of malice, envy, and revenge.]

to enable him to drink wine, to drive to
church in a gig, to teach his daughters music and quadrille-dancing, and
to mount his sons upon hunters, while the ancient tenants are forced to
become bondsmen or day-labourers, with the recollection of their former
honourable independence still warm. Yet this is a system strongly
recommended, and practised with great inconsistency, by men who have the
words liberty and independence in their mouths, and are loud in their
com-plaints of the slavish and oppressed state of the people.

It is impossible to contemplate, without
anxiety and pain, the probable effects of these operations in producing
that demoralization, pauperism, and frequency of crime, which endanger the
public tranquillity, and threaten to impose no small burden on landlords,
in contributing to the maintenance of those who cannot or will not
maintain themselves. Will the Highlanders, as cottagers, without
employment, refrain from immorality and crime? Can we expect from such men
the same regularity of conduct as when they were independent, both in mind
and in circumstances?

[When the engrossing system commenced in the
North, and the people were removed from their farms, a spirit of revenge
was strongly evinced among those who were permitted to remain in the
country. They saw themselves reduced to poverty, and, believing that those
who got possession of their lands were the advisers of their landlords,
hatred and revenge, heightened by poverty, led to the commission of those
thefts from the pastures noticed in the criminal convictions in the
Appendix, BB. As cattle-stealing disappeared when the people were
convinced of the immorality of the practice, and as the crime now noticed
commenced only when they were reduced to poverty, and instigated by
vindictive feelings for the loss of their ancient habitations, may it not
be believed that, if these irritating causes had not occurred, neither
would the crimes which seem to have resulted from them? And if
circumstances confirm the justness of this supposition, may we not ask
what degree of responsibility to God and to their country attaches to
those whose plans led to the commission of these crimes?]

When collected together in towns and villages,
will they be able to maintain the same character that was their pride on
their paternal farms? Losing respect for the opinion of the world, [See
Appendix EE.] will they not also lose that respect for themselves, which,
in its influence, is much more powerful than laws, on morality and public
manners; and attempt to procure a livelihood by discreditable expedients,
by petty depredations, or by parish aid? We have the example of Ireland,
where the people are poor and discontented. In the tumults and outrages of
that country, we see how fertile poverty and misery are in crimes. The
Irish and Highlanders were originally one people, the same in lineage,
character, and language, till the oppression of a foreign government, and
the system of middlemen, as they are called, with other irritating causes,
have reduced the lower orders in the former country to a state of poverty
which, while it has debased their principles, has generated hatred and
envy against their superiors. This has been the principal cause of those
outrages which throw such a shade over the character of a brave and
generous people; who, if they had been cherished and treated as the
clansmen of the Highlands once were, would, no doubt, have been equally
faithful to their superiors in turbulent times, and equally moral and
industrious in their general conduct.

[The misery of the lower orders in Ireland is
frequently produced as an instance of the misery resulting from the
continuance of small tenants in the Highlands. This, however, must
originate in gross ignorance of the relative state of the two countries,
which will not bear a comparison. The small tenants in the Highlands
generally possessed from two to ten or twenty milch cows, with the usual
proportion of young cattle, from two to five horses, and from twenty to
one or two hundred sheep ; the quantity of arable land being sufficient to
produce winter provender for the stock, and to supply every necessary for
the family. To each of these farms a cottager was usually attached, who
also had his share of land; so that every family consumed their own
produce, and, except in bad seasons, were independent of all foreign
supplies. This was, and still is, in many cases, the small farming system
in the Highlands, to which the system prevalent in Ireland bears so little
resemblance, that it is impossible to reason analogically from the one to
the other.]

But, instead of exhibiting such a character as
has been depicted, we have the following view from an intelligent author
oh the "Education of the Peasantry in Ireland." In allusion to the absence
of proprietors, their ignorance of the character, dispositions, and
capability of the native population, and their harsh measures towards
them, he says, "The gentry, for the most part, seldom find time for such
inquiries; the peasantry who live around them are sometimes the objects of
fear, but more usually of contempt; they may be enemies to guard against,
creatures to be despised, but never subjects of research or examination.
The peasantry saw that the real hardships of their condition were never
inquired into. Their complaints were met by an appeal to force: the
impatience of severe oppression was extinguished in blood. This served to
harden their hearts; it alienated them from the established order of
things; it threw them back on their own devices, and made them place their
confidence in their wild schemes of future retaliation.

"The gentry, of a lofty and disdainful spirit,
intrepid and tyrannical, divided from the people by old animosities, by
religion, by party, and by blood; divided, also, frequently by the
necessities of an improvident expenditure, which made them greedy for high
rents, easily to be obtained in the competition of an overcrowded
population, but not paid without grudging and bitterness of heart; the
extravagance of the landlord had but one resource—high rents; the peasant
had but one means of living—the land: he must give what is demanded, or
starve; and, at best, he did no more than barely escape starving. His life
is a struggle against high rents, by secret combination and open violence:
that of the landlord, a struggle to be paid, and to preserve a right of
changing his tenantry when and as often as he pleased. In this conflict,
the landlord was not always wrong, nor the peasantry always right. The
indulgent landlord was sometimes not better treated than the harsh one,
nor low rents better paid than high. The habits of the people were
depraved; and the gentry, without attending to this, and surprised that no
indulgence on their part produced an immediately corresponding return of
gratitude and punctuality, impatiently gave up the matter as beyond their
comprehension, and the people as incapable of improvement."

This being given as the state of the Irish, we
have the following view of the English peasantry from an able author, who,
as I have already stated, in p. 153, describes the degradation consequent
on the expulsion of the agricultural population from their lands.
"Millions of independent peasantry were thus at once degraded into
beggars. Stripped of all their proud feelings, which hitherto had
characterized Englishmen, they were too ignorant, too dispersed, too
domestic, and possessed too much reverence for their superiors, to combine
as mechanics or manufacturers in towns. Parish relief was, therefore,
established as a matter of necessity." Endeavouring to show the
impossibility of preserving independence and morality in the precarious
state of existence to which many are subject in England, he proceeds: "In
England, the poor quarrel about, and call for, charity as a right, without
being either grateful or satisfied. The question of property should be but
of secondary consideration on this subject with the State. Whether the
rents of the parish go to one great lord, or to one hundred great paupers,
is a point of less importance than moral character. It has been already
shown, that the poor rates of England tend to make the peasantry base and
vicious. Men having no encouragement will idle if they can, but the parish
officers will not let them if they can. The peasantry will not find work,
but the parish officers will. The peasantry are put upon the rounds, as it
is called; that is, they are sent round the parish, from door to door, not
to beg, indeed, but to work a certain number of days, according to the
extent of the property on which they are billeted, whether there be any
work for them to do or not, The roundsmen are paid eight or tenpence
a-day, and so much is saved apparently to the parish funds. But the
roundsmen knowing this, and having no mercy on the parish fund, thinking
they are used ill in being thrust about and being treated probably with
ill humour by those they are thrust upon : under these circumstances, the
roundsmen do just as little work as they can, and perhaps do more harm
than good. Thus pushed about, as a nuisance, are the peasantry of this
great, wealthy, and enlightened nation, without house or living, kindred,
or protecting superiors; and yet we shall be told, these are free-born
Englishmen, and that the slaves in the West Indies are hardly off, though
they possess those enjoyments of which the English peasant is deprived,
except personal liberty; that is, the enjoyment of being disregarded by
every one, except as a nuisance. This is the state of the lower orders;
and yet we are told, that teaching them to read will remove the evil—will
correct the vices which such a horrible system necessarily generates. Give
them not a looking-glass; gin and drugged beer will do better." [Serious
Considerations on the State of the English Peasant.]

We have here a short but impressive view of
the state of the peasantry in the two sister kingdoms; what the peasantry
have been in the northern part of Scotland, and what they now are, I have
attempted to show. But if the Highlanders are forced to renounce their
former habits of life; if the same system is applied to them as to the
peasantry of the two sister kingdoms, infinitely more favoured by climate,
soil, and every natural advantage for promoting the comfort, independence,
and contentment of the people; are we not to expect that the results will
be much more fatal in a country comparatively poor, and destitute of such
adventitious aids, as might counterbalance, or fix a limit to, the evils
of systems which have produced so much wretchedness? Should the
Highlanders be placed in similar circumstances, may we not dread lest they
realize in the North of Scotland the lawless turbulence of the sister
island of Celts, and the degraded pauperism of a large portion of England?

After the year 1745, when many of the
Highlanders were driven from their homes, and forced to lead a wandering
life, we know that many depredations were committed, although the great
body of the people remained sound. Judging from recent symptoms, we may
safely hazard the assertion, that the irritating causes in 1746, 1747, and
in 1748, did not affect the morals of the people to the same extent as the
events which have lately taken place. At no period of the history of the
country, indeed, were the people more exemplary than for many years
posterior to the Rebellion, when the moral principles peculiar to, and
carefully inculcated at that period, combined with the chivalry, high
feeling, and romance of preceding times, strengthened by the religious and
reverential turn of thinking peculiar to both, gave force and warmth to
their piety, and produced that composition of character, which made them
respected by the enemy in the field, and religious, peaceable, and
contented in quarters, as well as in private life. [See Appendix FF.] What
they have formerly been, will they not still continue to be, if they were
only made to experience the same kindness as their forefathers? The
cordial and condescending kindness of the higher orders, as I have already
oftener than once said, contributed materially to produce that character
which the people seem anxious to perpetuate. This is particularly
exemplified by the exertions which they make to give their children an
education suitable to their station in life, and often far above it. The
value of education is well understood ; and whenever they have the power,
and their circumstances are comfortable, they seldom fail to give it to
their children.

[One of the many instances of this is
exhibited in a small Highland valley, the length of which is less than six
miles, and the breadth from half a mile to one mile and a quarter. This
glen is, with one exception, managed in the old manner, the original
people being allowed to remain on their small possessions. How small these
are may be judged from the population, which is 985 souls. They are
consequently poor, but not paupers. Several aged women, and two men, who
are lame, receive ten or fifteen shillings annually from the parish fund.
The whole are supported on their lands, for which they pay full value.
There are not manufactures, except for home consumption. In this state of
comparative poverty, independent, however, of parochial aid, such is their
proper spirit, and sense 'of the value of education, that as the parish
school is near one end of the glen, the people of the farther extremity
have e-stablished three separate schools for their children, paying small
salaries, with school fees, to the teachers, who, if unmarried (as is
generally the case), live without expense among the more wealthy of the
tenants. Thus, these industrious people give an education, suitable to
their situation in life, to 240 children (the number when I last saw
them), including those at the parish school, without any assistance
whatever from the landlords.]

But unless their temporal, as well as their
intellectual and spiritual concerns are attended to, it may be a question,
whether any degree of learning will make them contented and moral. If men
live in the dread of being ejected at every term, or contemplate the
probability of being obliged to emigrate to a distant country, the best
education, unless supported by a strong sense of religion and morality,
will hardly be sufficient to produce content, respect for the laws, and a
love of the country and its government.

Scotland has indeed reaped the greatest
benefits from education ; but perhaps it is rating these advantages too
high to ascribe the acknowledged moral character of the people solely to
this source. The Scotch were a trust-worthy people before there was any
established system of education in the country. Of this we have sufficient
evidence in the confidence placed in Scotchmen in France and Holland,
where for ages they were held in such esteem as to be preferred to
situations requiring the greatest trust, honour, and firmness. Had these
men been void of good principles at home, they could not well have
acquired, them in a superior degree, in countries where they were
preferred to the natives. In a report of the southern counties of Scotland
by William Elliot of Stobbs, and Walter Scott of Arkleton, in the year
1649, we find that, after seven years of rebellion and intestine
commotion, theft, lying, and swearing (except a-niong a few outcasts),
were totally unknown; the people were strong and active, sober, and
abstemious in their diet; ingenious, and hating deceit. [Report of
Selkirk, &c. Advocates' Library, 1649.]

When the tyrannical restrictions on religion
and conscience, in the reign of Charles II., drove the people in the
western counties to desperation, and when forced to fly to the mountains,
woods, and mosses, and to exist on such accidental supplies as an
exhausted country could afford, we meet with no firing of houses, nor
murders of magistrates, prosecutors and witnesses, as we daily see in the
present enlightened age: all was borne with Christian patience, except in
cases where fanaticism and bigotry deprived men of their reason ; and it
ought to be observed, that the principal actors in these instances were
generally of the higher and educated orders, as in that of the murderers
of Archbishop Sharpe. In the Highlands we find, from many authors, that,
with the exception of their forays and cattle depredations, the
Highlanders were early considered a valuable trust-worthy race. In the
year 1678, when the Duke of Lauderdale and the Ministers of Charles II.
ordered the "Highland Host" to the south-western districts of Scotland to
put down the Covenanters, their forbearance, considering the nature of
their duty, was a topic of remark. In like manner, in 1745, when many
thousands were in arms, and let loose from all restraint, with little
education among the common men, it may be a problem whether, if they had
all been graduates of St Andrew's or Aberdeen, they could have conducted
themselves with more urbanity and moderation. Such were the characteristic
principles of the Scotch, both Lowland and Highland, when education was
far from being general. There are upwards of 8000 schools in Ireland, but
these apparently exert little influence on the morals of the peasantry,
because they are oppressed, despised, and neglected; nourishing a spirit
of hatred and revenge, and in a state of poverty and despair which no
education can remove.

The truth seems to be, that in a country where
a universal system of education has been established as in Scotland, there
must have been an early and well-founded principle, of which the schools
may be considered as the effect, and not the cause, and which must have
produced those estimable habits, long a distinguished feature in the
national character. The foundation of those valuable habits may in part
have been owing to the cordiality, mutual confidence, and support, which
subsisted between the higher and lower orders in Scotland.

Fletcher of Saltoun, a strenuous supporter of
the independence of his country, gives indeed a deplorable view of the
state to which thousands of the people were reduced at the end of the
seventeenth century. His statement seems to refer only to Fife and the
counties southward and westward, which at that period did not contain
beyond 900,000 inhabitants. Of this population, he states that 200,000
went about in bands of sturdy beggars, or sorners, as they were called,
without house or habitation, living on the public by begging, open
plunder, and private stealing. This frightful number of beggars and
outcasts of society, in so small a population, is almost incredible,
particularly when compared with the report of the same counties by the
Lairds of Arkleton and Stobbs, fifty years preceding. There was, indeed,
sufficient cause for poverty, distress, and crimes in Saltoun's time. It
was at that period that the stock-grazing system of large farms began in
the South, when the higher orders lost all regard for their followers, and
forgot all ancient kindness and friendship (of which we have seen too many
instances in our times in the North), and thousands of the brave
Borderers, whose forefathers defended their country, were sent adrift
without house or shelter, in that country for which their ancestors had
fought and bled. Then the people naturally lost all confidence and respect
for those from whom they received this treatment; and there being no
manufacturing towns to receive them, no emigration to America, and no
employment in a country all turned to pasture, they had no alternative but
to beg or steal.

[I happened to read Fletcher of Salton's
Statement of the Scotch Poor early in life, and was much struck with it. I
mentioned the subject to Mr Stewart of Crossmount, who, as I have already
noticed, died in 1791, in his 104th year, consequently was born before the
reign of King William, and was 15 years of age at the death of that
monarch in 1702. He had a perfect recollection of the period to which
Fletcher's Statement refers, I have already said that he was a man of
sound judgment and accurate memory, but from his extreme youth at the
period in question, he could not speak from personal observation beyond
the glen in which he lived; yet he remembered, that King William's seven
years of famine, as they were called by the Jacobites, were the subject of
all conversations, and that his father made a considerable sum of money by
a speculation in grain which he brought from Dundee and Perth. In the
Highlands the grain never ripened for many harvests. It would not grind
into meal from its softness. The people dried or roasted the best and
ripest grains, and, pounding it between two stones, ate it in that state.
He knew little more of the South, than that he always heard that the
people there suffered more than the Highlanders, because they had not so
many cattle and deer to kill for their food. The number of cattle killed
in those years, and afterwards sent to England, when the trade opened
after the Union, raised the price to a height formerly unknown; that is,
to twenty shillings or a guinea for a fat ox or cow. He added, that he
went south with the rebels in 1715, and was wounded and taken at
Sheriffmuir. When he recovered he came back through the south-east of
Scotland. He saw many wandering beggars.]

Were it not for America and the towns in the
Lowlands, would not the late ejectments, and depopulations in the North
produce a host of sturdy beggars, sorners, and thieves? A reference to the
state of England by Sir Thomas More, of Scotland by Fletcher of Salton,
and to the recent associations for the suppression of felony in different
parts of the Northern Highlands, exhibits a striking coincidence, and
shows that the want of education is not the principal cause of crimes and
poverty. Now that schools are generally established in Scotland, it
behoves the higher orders to endeavour, by protection, by kindness, and by
example, to preserve those principles which have been so honourable to
this country, which form the best basis for good education among a people,
and without which, indeed, education may be a curse instead of a blessing.
But, unfortunately, many Highlanders have begun, (as I have too often had
occasion to mention), to lose all confidence in the views and line of
conduct of their superiors, of whom they say, "When I see a man
subscribing for schools and bible societies, while he reduces his tenants
to poverty by exorbitant rents; while he has school-books and bibles in
one hand, and in the other a warrant of ejectment, or an order for rouping
out for the rent; and when he makes speeches at public meetings lamenting
the loss of morals, and in private, lectures against drunkenness and the
vices it produces, while, at the same time, the rents are such that they
cannot be paid without smuggling, cheating, perjury and lying;—when all
this is daily seen and practised, who can doubt but that there is much
hypocrisy at the bottom?"

Such are the sentiments I often hear expressed
by the people, and which may be ascribed to the operation of that grasping
selfish system, which looks only to what is supposed to bring the most
immediate advantages, careless of the loss to others,—tempting men to
cheat and deceive by calling for the cheapest contracts,—raising a spirit
of rivalry and over-reaching by auctioning, and receiving secret offers
for farms,—and which have occasioned great distress and discontent in the
Highlands, with much less permanent advantage to the promoters than might
have been obtained by a more open, and a milder line of conduct. If people
see that their welfare is attended to, they will return the favour.
Gratitude, kindness, and friendship, are natural to man; but harshness and
oppression will quickly destroy all. In the Highlands, the contrast
between the past and present manners are the more striking, from the
recollection of those times when the poorest clansman received a kind
shake of the hand from the laird, and was otherwise treated like an
independent man, and a proper regard shown to his feelings. Modern customs
allow of no such intimacy with the lower orders, and strangers, with no
recommendation but money, are preferred to all ancient claimants. "If a
Lowlander," said an old acquaintance to me, with tears in his eyes, "comes
among us with a good horse, a pair of spurs, and a whip, he is immediately
received by the laird, who takes him to his house; he has the choice of a
farm, and a whole tribe of us are sent to cot-houses on the moors, or
ejected entirely; and while the Lowlander gets a fine house at the
landlord's expense, I must build my own hut, get no allowance for the
house I have left, although I built it myself, and while the stranger is
supplied with Norway wood for his house, if I take a birch-tree not worth
five shillings from the hill-side, the constable is sent after me with a
warrant; I am threatened with a removal and the terrors of the law by the
laird on whose lands I built the house, and whose property it will be when
I leave it, which I would do to-morrow if I knew where to go." Will
education cure this poor man's grief and indignation? Will reading make
him contented with his lot, loyal to his king and government, and attached
to his landlord? Reading will more clearly show him his misery. To make a
man comfortable in his circumstances, and easy in his mind, and thus to
remove all temptation or necessity for resorting to improper practices,
are better and more certain preservatives of morals than reading or
writing, particularly if the educated reader is in poverty and
destitution, and that destitution occasioned by the oppressive conduct of
others.

As a man blind from his infancy may be
virtuous, and well instructed in all useful knowledge, without ever having
read a line in his life, so are the bulk of the uneducated Highlanders
well instructed in a knowledge of the Gospel and of the Scriptures, and
possessed of great intelligence in all that immediately concerns
themselves, and comes within the range of their knowledge, confined, as it
must necessarily often be, to the narrow bounds of a Highland strath or
glen.

I have already mentioned, that many Highland
gentlemen, though possessed of honourable and humane dispositions, have,
with the best intentions, allowed themselves to be seduced into hasty
measures, and the adoption of plans unsuitable to their lands and their
tenants; and have thus unhinged the social virtues, and the mutual
confidence between them and their formerly attached dependants, whose
sentiments and feelings are deplorably changed in many respects. May we
not therefore hope, that when prejudicial effects are produced on the
minds of the tenants, an abatement of hasty changes will ensue; and that
we shall not see advertisements inviting strangers to offer for their
lands, while they are themselves willing and able to pay equally high
rents; with other measures calculated to raise their indignation, and
check the inclination to improve their farms and modes of cultivation? May
we not hope, that gentlemen will take into consideration the well-known
fact, that the agricultural system now carried on with such spirit in
Scotland, was 140 years [A respectable Highland clergyman, of talents and
learning, who occupied a farm of some extent contiguous to his glebe, was
so wedded to old customs, that it was not till the year 1815 that he
commenced green crops, liming, and fallow; although two gentlemen (the
honourable Baron Norton and Mr Macdonald of Glenco) in his immediate
neighbourhood, had carried on the system for some years with great
success. Now, when such a person rejected all innovations, is it
surprising that an ignorant Highlander, with his deep-rooted predilection
to ancient habits, should not commence a system (by order, perhaps, of a
harsh and authoritative agent) which would overturn all notions of respect
and reverence for the customs of his fathers?] in progress in England
before the prejudices of the southern Scotch farmers were so far overcome
as to embrace and practise it? And if gentlemen will also recollect, that
their own fathers and grandfathers, men of education and knowledge of the
world, saw these improved changes, in their frequent intercourse with the
South, long before they introduced them into their own practice, many
never having done so at all; will they not then make some indulgent
allowance for the prejudices of the poor and ignorant Highlander, who
never travelled beyond the bounds of his own or the neighbouring
districts, and afford him time to comprehend the advantages of changes so
recent, and so opposite to his usual habits? Should landlords arraign
their people as incorrigible, because they do not change with every
variation of every political or economical opinion, or according to the
direction in which newly-adopted theories would turn them, and embrace
systems of which they have never been made to comprehend the advantages,
and without any encouragement or spur for exertion but an augmentation of
rent?

In what manner the people comprehend and act
on the new system of agriculture, when the knowledge of it is attainable,
is clearly seen in those districts whose vicinity to the South has enabled
the inhabitants to follow the example shown them. [The inveteracy and the
difficulty of overcoming ancient habits, in countries highly favoured by
many opportunities of improvement, is shown in several parts of England,
where ploughing is still performed, even on light soils, with four and
five horses; whereas that custom has long been laid aside in Scotland,
where two horses are found sufficient for the deepest soils: yet, with
this example before them, English farmers continue such a waste of labour,
at great additional expense to themselves and consequent loss to the
landlord. But it would be endless to state instances of prejudices as
deep-rooted and prejudicial as any entertained in the Highlands, where the
people have suffered so much from mischievous experiments, founded on
their supposed incapacity and incurable prejudices.] Any person travelling
through Athole, Breadalbane, and other districts of the Highlands of
Perthshire, will observe, in the altered appearance of the country, how
readily the people have availed themselves of useful and practical
knowledge, and to what extent improvements have been carried, both in
respect to the quantity and the quality of the produce. These districts
furnish decisive proof of this progressive improvement. In glens where a
few years ago, turnips and the green crop system were totally unknown,
they are now as regularly cultivated as in Mid-Lothian; on a small scale,
to be sure, as it must necessarily be, from the size of the farms and the
narrow limits of cultivation, but in a manner calculated to produce good
rents to the proprietors, and great comparative comfort to the tenants.
This spirit of improvement is extending northwards and has every
appearance of spreading over the whole country, although it has, in
various instances, been checked by attempts to force it on too rapidly,
and by theories founded on the customs of countries totally different,
both in soil, climate, and in the habits of the people. One obvious evil
is, the too frequent practice of giving leases for only sever years. This
the people dislike more than none at all,

[On several estates, tenants neither ask for
leases, nor are any given, ye' improvements are carried on with the same
spirit as on estates where leases are granted. In the former case, much of
the confidence of old times remains, the landlord's promise being as good
as his bond; and the tenants trust to this in preference to a documentary
term of years, and are safe from a removal while they conduct themselves
with propriety, and are willing at the same time to augment their rents
according to the times. In the latter they would be in anxious suspense,
and in dread of removal at the end of each lease. Such is the manner of
acting and thinking peculiar to landlords and tenants on the estates of
honourable and judicious men, some of whom I have the happiness to call my
friends; and such also is the custom in many parts of England. A highly
enlightened and respectable friend, a native of Yorkshire, has favoured me
with the following communication: "The practice of letting farms to the
highest bidder is unknown. It would be utterly destructive of that good
faith that subsists between landlord and tenant. In Yorkshire, few
gentlemen grant leases. It may be supposed that the want of leases impedes
improvement, inasmuch as tenants are unwilling to lay out their capital
upon an uncertain tenure. This may be true to a certain extent, but the
good faith that subsists between landlord and tenant is a sort of
relationship in which they stand to each other. They are not bound to
observe each other's interest by leases or bonds of parchment; but they
are bound by obligations of honour, of mutual interest, and reciprocal
advantage. The right of voting at county elections gives the freeholder of
forty shillings a high degree of importance and respectability in his own
opinion, and in that of his landlord. He confers a favour on his
superiors, and he has at least once in seven years the power of showing
bis independence, and of chastising the insolence or oppression of the
rich. At a late county election, the popular candidate of a northern
county waited on a shoemaker to solicit his vote. 'Get out of my house,
Sir,' said the shoemaker: the gentleman walked out accordingly. 'You
turned me out of your estate, continued the shoemaker, ' and I was
determined to turn you out of my house; but, for all that, I will give you
my vote.'"]

as, according to their opinion, the expiration
of these short terms serves to remind the landlords of an increase of rent
on the improvements made, without allowing time to the tenants to reap the
benefit of their previous exertions.

Much of the want of that spirit for
improvement, so much complained of, is owing to the practice of augmenting
the rent on any successful exertion or change made by the tenant. On
several estates within my knowledge, the rents were augmented every third
and fourth year after the improvements commenced but the consequence of
the last augmentation was a complete bar to further exertions on the part
of the tenants, who then saw no prospect of being allowed any benefit from
their labours. Another practice equally incredible is gaining ground, and
calculated to excite surprise in an enlightened age, with the example of
Ireland as a warning, were we not accustomed to see many extraordinary
things in the management of the poor Highlanders. Landlords and their
agents have employed middlemen, to whom they let a tract of country, with
power to subset, on a rent of their own fixing, to the small tenants,—a
system pregnant with misery and discontent, without one apparent advantage
to the landlord, except the saving of trouble by collecting rent from one
great middleman instead of thirty or forty small tenants.

But notwithstanding these insulated cases,
when we find, that in the southern Highland districts, the natural course
of improvements has led to the best results, the same might be expected in
more northern counties, if the inhabitants were allowed the additional
time rendered necessary by their greater distance from example, and
suffered to reap the advantage of the new communications opened by the
admirable roads, the construction of which does so much credit to the
spirit and liberality both of the proprietors and of government, at whose
joint expense they have been formed. [The amount of this joint expenditure
exceeds 460,000l. Upwards of 1200 miles of new roads have been made, and
about 540 miles of the old military roads completely repaired, with 1436
bridges, of one or more arches, and 11,460 water-courses and covered
drains.—See Reports of Parliamentary Commissioners.] It is hoped,
therefore, that gentlemen will believe, that Highlanders may acquire skill
by experience, and a capital by their exertions and industry; and that
they will also believe, that, although a numerous tenantry may consume
more produce than one large establishment, humanity, and the poverty,
misery, and perhaps crimes, resulting from their removal, ought not to be
totally forgotten ; nor a plausible theory of feeding a surplus
population, at the landlord's expense, be allowed to make them lose sight
of the important fact, that their income is never so secure as when their
farms are occupied by an economical, industrious, and well-principled
people;

[The late Mr Campbell of Achallader, who, as I
have already mentioned, was fifty-five years agent or factor to the late
Earl of Breadalbane, often stated, that during this long period, a failure
of payment was so rare, and so much shame was attached to it, that when,
by misfortune or accident, a person happened to be deficient, his friends
or neighbours generally assisted him by a loan, or otherwise. The
deficiency was never officially known to the chamberlain, except in cases
of total bankruptcy, or roguery on the part of the tenant. I have the same
good authority for stating, that of these the instances were very rare;
and such was the mutual confidence, and such the honourable manner in
which business was conducted, that no receipt for rent was ever asked. An
account was opened for every tenant, and when the rent was paid,
Achallader put the initials of his name below the sum credited. This was
sufficient receipt for upwards of eleven hundred sums paid by that number
of tenants under his charge. I know not whether this is more honourable to
the noble proprietor, to the judicious management of his excellent
chamberlain, or to the integrity and industry of the numerous tenantry.
During that period there were several years of severe pressure, and
particularly the autumns, from 1770 to 1774, were cold and wet, and very
unproductive in the higher grounds, where the corn did not ripen for three
successive harvests. I am informed by my friend Mr Stewart of Ardvorlich,
a gentleman of the first respectability and intelligence, who succeeded Mr
Campbell, that he experienced equal fidelity to their engagements on the
part of the tenants, and that he never had a shilling of arrears while he
had the management, which he resigned many years ago.]

—a people who always attach so much
disgrace to a failure in the payment of rent, that, on a reverse of
fortune having befallen a man, he comforted himself with this reflection,
"I have one happiness, I have paid my rent, and have not lost credit with
my landlord."

[A young artist, who has raised himself to the
first eminence by his talents, painted, a few years ago, two pieces on a
subject highly interesting to agriculturists, but, as Mr Wilkie found, not
a popular piece of art. These he called Rent-Day, and Distraining for
Rent. The latter was little known in the Highlands till introduced with
the improvements; and Rent-Day, as it was held in former times, is no
longer seen in what are called the improved districts. In former times,
the collection of rents was a kind of jubilee, when the tenants on great
estates attended, and spent several days in feasting and rejoicing at
fulfilling their engagements with their landlords, and in offering
grateful libations to their honour and prosperity. Perhaps things are
differently managed now, and the irregularity of payment renders general
meetings impossible. But in Yorkshire, as I am informed by a friend to
whom I owe very interesting communications, "The good custom of Rent-Day
Dinners still continues to be observed, when all the tenantry on the
estate assemble in the hall of the landlord's mansion, and are regaled
with roast beef, plum-pudding, and home-brewed ale, and the Squire's
health is drank with affectionate enthusiasm. In ancient families it is
still customary for the landlord to preside in person, but in more refined
modern establishments, the steward takes the head of the table. The annual
appearance at this table is a subject of honest pride. The absence of a
tenant is considered ominous of his declining credit. Not to appear at the
rent-day is disgraceful. The conversation at these dinners is on the best
breed of cattle, and the best modes of husbandry. They have given rise to
agricultural societies. Thus emulation, good neighbourhood, respectful
attachment to landlords, and friendly feelings towards each other, are
promoted. The man who would offer a higher price for his neighbour's farm,
or endeavour to supplant him, could not show his face at the Rent-Day
Dinner; and the landlord who would accept such an offer at the expense of
an old and respectable tenant, would be held in contempt by many of his
own rank, and in abhorrence by his tenantry. Such, I believe, are the
implied conditions between landlord and tenant; and how soon the
increasing progress of luxury and extravagance may produce rapacity and
extortion, it is impossible to say ; but hitherto the respect paid to good
faith, and the value attached to good character, have prevented those
melancholy and cruel effects which have been so severely felt in many of
the northern parts of the island."]

This is a principle worth preserving, and a
more honourable security for good payments than distraining for rents, and
other modes much too frequent; for it is no uncommon thing to see a
tenant's whole stock under sequestration, without liberty to dispose of an
article, unless by consent of the landlord, who orders an examination of
the stock and produce at certain periods, and what is marketable to be
disposed of for the rent. Will it be credited, that such a system can be
pursued, and that men, who thus act towards their tenants, complain of
their indolence and want of spirit to improve—under sequestration, and an
annual warning to remove?

After so long a disquisition on a most painful
subject, I now turn to one of a more agreeable nature,—the exertions made
of late years to remedy, or rather to restrain the progress of those evils
which press so heavily on the natives of the Highlands. These efforts, and
the examples shown by individuals, have done much; but having avoided the
mention of names, either in approbation or the reverse, I shall now follow
the same rule, and merely notice public bodies. Among these, the high
respectability of the members of the Highland Society of Scotland,—the
judicious discrimination and spirit with which the objects of this
institution are carried into effect,—the benefits it has conferred,—and
the liberal and impartial manner in which its premiums are
distributed,—justly entitle this patriotic body to high estimation, and
render it the most eminently useful of any public association ever
connected with the Highlands.

"The Highland Society of Scotland derives its
origin from a number of gentlemen, natives of, or connected with the
Highlands, assembled at Edinburgh in the year 1784. That meeting
conceiving (as the words of their own resolutions express) that the
institution of a Highland Society at Edinburgh would be attended with many
good consequences to the country, as well as to individuals,' determined
to take the sense of their countrymen on the propriety of such an
institution. A numerous meeting of such gentlemen as a residence in or
near Edinburgh allowed of being called together, was assembled. They
warmly approved of the measure; agreed to become members of such a
society; proceeded to the nomination of a President, Vice-Presidents, and
Committee; and having thus far embodied themselves, wrote circular letters
to such noblemen and gentlemen as birth, property, or connexion qualified,
and, as they supposed, might incline to join in the formation of such an
establishment, inviting them to become members of the proposed society."
[Introduction to the first volume of "Transactions and Essays of the
Highland Society," by Henry Mackenzie, Esq. one of the Directors.]

The original objects of the Society were, an
inquiry into the present state of the Highlands and adjacent Isles, with
the condition of their inhabitants; the means of their improvement by
establishing towns and villages, roads and bridges, advancing agriculture
and extending fisheries, introducing useful trades and manufactures, and
by an exertion to unite the efforts of the landlords, and to call the
attention of Government towards the encouragement and promotion of these
useful purposes. The Society also proposed to pay attention to the
preservation of the language, poetry, and music of the Highlands. These
were the original objects of the institution ; but they are now extended
so as to embrace a great variety of branches, both of agriculture and the
arts. The premiums annually distributed by the Society have raised a
spirit of emulation, exertion, and a desire to improve, productive of the
greatest advantages. Premiums have been given in every district of the
country for improving the breed of horses, cattle, and sheep,—for
draining, trenching, clearing, and planting,—for the cultivation of green
crops in all their varieties, as well as for many other improvements, more
especially applicable to the Highlands. In support of national literature,
the Society has been equally liberal; and the amount of the sums expended
in preparing and publishing a Gaelic Dictionary is, I believe, almost
unexampled in the history of literature. Premiums are also given for
various agricultural improvements, &c. in the Lowlands. Much labour, and a
considerable portion of the Society's funds, have been expended on the
subject of establishing an uniformity of weights and measures, with many
other important objects intimately connected with the welfare of the
country.

Faithful to the purposes of its institution,
the Society has taken every opportunity of encouraging whatever
tends to improve the cultivation of the country in general, and
particularly of the remote and mountainous region from which it assumed
its name. The premiums, therefore, are not confined to the Highlands, or
to such kinds of agriculture or manufactures as are exclusively adapted to
that country; they have extended, and continue still farther to extend, to
draw forth information, and to stimulate ingenuity in every branch of
those departments which may be useful, whether in the Highlands or other
parts of the country: and in the eloquent language of one of its first
members, who has ever been a constant, zealous, and able conductor of its
duties,—"The Highland Society has been, not unaptly, compared to one of
our native rivers, which has its rise indeed in the Highlands, but which,
increasing as it flows, fertilizes and improves Lowland districts, at a
distance from those less cultivated regions whence it originally springs."
[Introduction to the third volume of the Transactions of the Highland
Society, by Henry Mackenzie, Esquire. Lord Bannatyne and Mr Mackenzie are
now the only surviving members of the Lounger and Mirror Club. For a
period of thirty-nine years they have never been absent from a General or
Committee Meeting of the Highland Society, except in instances of
indisposition, or some indispensable engagement.] In prosecution of these
views, the Society has, within the" last twelve years, distributed about
L.1400 annually in premiums.

The subject of emigration did not escape the
attention of the Society; but the Directors were too intelligent to
attempt to prevent emigration, among a people who, in the language of the
Report on the subject, have been "thrown, as it were, loose from their
native land," and left without the means of subsistence. With more
humanity they endeavoured to show the cruelty of such measures, and, at
the same time, suggested the necessity of establishing regulations to
preserve the health and lives of the emigrants on their voyage, by
preventing vessels from taking more than a certain number of passengers,
that there might be proper accommodation and a sufficient supply of
provisions, so that emigrants may in future be treated with humanity,
"instead of being delivered over, by numberless privations, and the want
of comfort and care, to diseases and destruction." [Report of the Highland
Society.] In conformity to these views of this important subject, the
Society got a bill brought into Parliament, founded on their suggestions:
It passed with little opposition, [Emigration, properly regulated, ought
to be encouraged from those districts where the new improvements have sent
the people to patches of land, and laid the foundation for realizing the
cottage and potatoe-garden system, and the wretchedness of the Irish
peasantry. It is surely better for the mother country that they should
emigrate than remain with such deplorable prospects in view. Two years ago
some Highland gentlemen, resident in India, lamenting the state to which
so many of their countrymen were reduced, subscribed about L. 1250, and
sent home the money to pay for the passage of a certain number of
emigrants. About 200 received the benefit of this donation, and have gone
to Canada. The humane act of these gentlemen is called the " Demon of
Reform " by those who write in praise of the new order of things in the
North.] so that an emigrant has now the chance of reaching his destination
without danger of being doomed to "diseases and destruction." With this
humane act, I conclude this short notice of the patriotic Highland Society
of Scotland, which has rendered such essential service to that part of the
country whose name it bears. It consists of nearly 1500 members.

A few years previous to the institution of the
Highland Society of Scotland, a Society was established in London in
somewhat similar circumstances. General Fraser of Lo-vat, and several
Highland gentlemen, met at the Spring-Garden coffee-house in the year
1778, and, after a few arrangements, formed themselves into a Society with
the same views, and for somewhat similar purposes as those I have detailed
of the meeting in Edinburgh. The Society soon increased in numbers, and in
the rank and respectability of its members, among whom were not only many
of the first nobility and men of talents and property in the kingdom, but
several members of the Royal Family; and in 1817, his Majesty, then Prince
Regent, was graciously pleased to become "Chief of the Highland Society of
London."

The Highland Society of Scotland taking the
lead in promoting the agricultural, and indeed the general improvement of
the country, that of London confines itself chiefly to the language,
music, poetry, and garb of the Highlands, and, along with these, to
preserve, perhaps, some of the best traits of the ancient character of the
people : and while in Edinburgh, rewards and premiums are given for
agricultural improvements, ingenious inventions, and other objects
applicable to civil life; in London it was intended to give rewards and
honorary marks of distinction for particular instances of courage,
distinguished talent, and chivalrous deeds in war, as they might be
displayed by Scotchmen and Scotch corps. But in this respect the
intentions of the Society have been interrupted by an unfortunate
misunderstanding, which will be noticed afterwards. In the encouragement
of national music and other objects, it has been most liberal; as is seen
at the annual exhibition in Edinburgh of the ancient war and field music
of the mountains, and of the Highland garb, which was instituted, and the
expense defrayed, by the London Society. But the greatest and most
important benefit which it has conferred, was the institution of the
Caledonian Asylum in London, for educating, supporting, and clothing the
children of soldiers and sailors of Scotland killed or disabled, or of
other destitute Scotchmen resident in London. This institution originated
with the Highland Society of London ; and having concluded the notice of
the Society of Scotland by the act for the protection of the unfortunate
emigrants, I finish now this notice of the sister Society, by stating its
connexion with the Caledonian Asylum.

Two such dissertations as the foregoing, on
the past and present state of the Highlands, may be considered as out of
the line of my profession, and not a very suitable preliminary to a
military memoir. But as the same people form the subject of both, and as
their personal hardihood and moral qualities were such as peculiarly
fitted them for the toils and privations of a military life, as will more
fully appear in the military narrative; it may not perhaps be foreign to
the principal subject, to show of what materials the Highland regiments
were originally composed, and what were the habits of thinking and acting
which, formed and matured within their native mountains, accompanied them
in their military progress. And, as much of the happiness of the
Highlanders, and no small share of the prosperity of the country, depends
on the manner in which they are treated by their natural protectors, in
whose hands Providence and the laws have placed so much power to raise or
depress their condition; it is surely of importance to remember that this
race of people, although poor in circumstances, has been both moral and
independent; and as symptoms of a retrograde tendency have recently begun
to show themselves, I trust I shall not be thought presumptuous in making
this feeble attempt, founded on a long intimacy with the people, both as
inhabitants of their native glens, and as soldiers in barracks and in the
field, and on some knowledge of the state of the country—to show what they
were, what they now are, and what, under a proper management, they may yet
become. The revolution to which I have so often alluded, considering the
short space of time in which it has been in operation, has been great. Had
it been accomplished in a more gentle manner, its influence on the general
disposition and character of the people would have been less evident and
more beneficial, and they might have been taught to become more
industrious, without any loss of attachment or of moral principle.

In the central Highlands, industry can be
employed only in the cultivation of the land. Fuel is too scarce, and all
materials, except wool and flax, are too distant for manufactories. This
is not to be regretted; there is sufficient space for manufactories in the
low country, and the towns are abundantly populous. Let the Highlanders,
therefore, remain a pastoral and agricultural people; the superabundant
population filling our military ranks with good recruits, sending out an
annual supply of labourers to the Low country when required, and
colonizing our distant possessions with a loyal and well-principled race.
Although there may be some waste of labour, and some parts of that produce
consumed on the spot, which might otherwise be sent to distant markets,
still it may be admitted, that the general value of produce does not
depend on the difference between a distant and home consumption. It
matters little to the general welfare of the State, whether the
consumption be on the spot, or at the distance of forty or one hundred
miles; and, although on a first view, it may appear a waste of labour to
employ more persons in agriculture than are absolutely necessary to
cultivate the soil, yet the morality and the independence of the
agricultural population is surely of some, if not of the highest,
consideration. It ought not, moreover, to be forgotten, that, if small
farmers raise the same quantity of produce as large farmers, the greater
consumption on the spot, in the former case, cannot possibly affect the
question, or form any solid objection that can be brought into comparison
with the advantage the bulk of the people derive from having a share in
the cultivation of the soil: seeing that, while these people remain in the
country, they are to be fed from its produce, it matters not in what
particular place they consume it. It may be further remarked, that the
frequent distress of the working classes, is mainly to be ascribed to the
too general adoption of the present agricultural system, which forces
people from the country to the towns, increases in an inordinate degree
the number of competitors for employment, and entails misery on themselves
and all who are in similar circumstances. These observations will receive
additional force, when it is considered, that this agricultural
independency is the best security against poor's rates. It is evident that
these rates originated in England when the people were driven from the
cultivation of the land, and left without any share in the profits of the
soil, except as labourers hired by others. It is equally well known, that,
in Scotland, people occupying land never apply for charity, except in
extreme cases. Numerous examples show, likewise, that the consumption of a
few additional mouths will not diminish the rent: therefore, as the
population in the Lowlands is already fully adequate for the present state
of manufactures in that part of the country, is it prudent or patriotic to
overstock them by depopulating the glens of the Highlands? There,
experience has proved, that a man may be poor, yet independent, and
innocent, although idle: but how idleness and poverty generate vice in
populous towns, the records of the criminal courts sufficiently evince.
These show, likewise, how numerous the crimes committed by Highlanders,
or, at least, persons with Highland names, and of Highland descent, have
become in cities. In their native country, on the contrary, the convicted
criminals in seventy years, during periods the most turbulent and lawless,
and taken from a population of 394,000 souls, did not exceed 91; [Records
of the Court of Justiciary.] while the number of criminals convicted in
one year (1817), at the spring and summer assizes at Lancaster, was 86;
and yet the agricultural parts of the neighbouring county of Westmorland,
and some counties in Wales, equal any part of the kingdom in morality and
exemption from crime. It may be said, that, to compare the habits,
temptations, debauchery, and crimes of cities, with the innocence of an
agricultural or pastoral life, cannot be fair and just. Certainly it is
not; but is it then consistent with our duty to God, or to humanity, with
our love of country, or our patriotism, to drive the people away from the
innocent walks of life, and force them into the resorts of immorality and
crime?

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